The nostalgia factor is getting lots of play this year for 50th anniversaries, and reflecting back on the extreme cool quotient of 1964, it’s not hard to see why that was such a pivotal year in pop culture: The Beatles landed in America; G.I. Joe was created; Ford gave us the Mustang; The Who formed; Twiggy dropped out of school to purse a modelling career; and, of course, Yorkdale Shopping Centre opened.

For a kid growing up in Downsview, with a penchant for fashion and stars in her eyes, the opening of that 1.2-million-square-foot, L-shaped shopping centre, Canada’s biggestat the time, was the epitome of glamour.

With the first section of the Spadina Expressway construction underway just a couple of minutes from my house, Yorkdale became our new shopping mecca, and while my mom went for groceries at the big “jet-age” Dominion store, (which boasted an underground conveyor belt that carried your purchases to a pick-up station in the southwest parking lot) I’d window shop, exhilarated by all the sparkling new stores and thrilled that, finally, Eaton’s and Simpson’s — those two downtown institutions — were both practically in my own backyard.

Then there was the fact that Yorkdale actually housed cinemas! Famous Players’ Yorkdale Theatres was the first dual auditorium facility of its kind, and the first cinema in Canada to be located in a shopping centre. Heading out to Yorkdale in our 1959 Chrysler Imperial for a movie and shopping on a Friday night or a Saturday afternoon brought new meaning to weekends, and provided welcome new oomph to my previously drab suburban world.

In many ways, Yorkdale helped define the ’60s for me, and I had at least a few “coming-of-age” experiences there. Watching Beach Blanket Bingo in 1965, the year I officially became a teenager, felt like a rite of passage. And then there was the afternoon I went shopping for my first bra, at a store called Young Canada. The coveted undergarment was dubbed a “training bra,” and was comprised of a flat band of jersey in the front, attached to those very grown-up bra straps I yearned to show off under my white shirts. After the life-changing purchase, I cruised through the glorious corridors of Yorkdale, proudly clutching my Young Canada bag, and feeling as though I’d finally arrived.

Within a couple of years, my girlfriends and I were organizing group outings to the shopping centre, thanks to the Dufferin bus. If we weren’t taking in a movie, or ordering “Kishka à la Tony”— described on the menu as “stuffed derma with brown gravy” and priced at 45 cents — at the Noshery Encore restaurant, the lure of all the costume jewelry and cosmetic counters at our beloved Yorkdale provided us with hours of entertainment.

And then there were the dizzying array of 110 stores to explore, including Town and Country, the May Company, Jack Fraser, Kresge’s, Reitman’s and Fairweather, where I got my first job in fashion, working for a Mrs. Scarabelli. Of course, I would have much rather worked at the back of the store, in the hip boutique called Big Steel, which offered unisex dressing. But I remained loyal to Mrs. Scarabelli, who ran a tight ship, and taught me about instilling confidence in consumers.

As a matter of fact, a handsome friend of my sister’s once confided that he was hired around the same time, paid to simply stroll the floor and compliment women about the clothes they were trying on. Talk about sales technique!

But my fondest Yorkdale memory is holding my Sweet 16 there in 1968, at the Golden Doors banquet facility, downstairs from the Encore. I themed the party Bonnie and Clyde — the movie had just come out a few months earlier — and gave out berets as party favours to all the girls. We danced to a local band called The Poet’s Circle — its cover version of Manfred Mann’s “The Mighty Quinn” hooked me. But the pièce de résistance was my sensational outfit: an aqua, skin-tight sparkling mini dress with matching booties that my mom’s German dressmaker whipped up for me, inspired by the November 1967 cover of Harper’s Bazaar. It truly was my first fashionista moment.

This month, as Yorkdale officially celebrates it’s big 5-0, exciting expansions and chic new shops aside, I guess what’s making me feel a bit giddy after all these years is the fact that I was asked to be part of the shopping centre’s celebratory campaign. A handful of so-called stylish Torontonians have posed for rockstar-cum-photographer Bryan Adams’ lens and now these mammoth black-and-white commissioned portraits will hang at Yorkdale for the next few months for all to see.

I never thought I’d wind up back at my old stomping grounds in this way: Returning to my neighbourhood mall feels like my life’s come full circle.

Jeanne Beker is a contributing editor to the Star and host of Fashion Television Channel. Email jeanne@ctv.ca , follow on Twitter @jeanne_beker and watch her on CTV, E! and FashionTelevisionChannel.

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